Gay Pride!

Day 23: Saturday
Slept in until 10:30, stayed in bed doing nothing until noon, got up, made eggs for lunch/breakfast, then got ready to go out to Santa Maria Cosmedian to see the Mouth of Truth and a couple other churches. The Mouth of Truth was one of the most disappointing things about Rome so far. You wait in a line and then you have about five seconds to snap a quick picture and then you’re on your way. I don’t even know what the thing looks like besides from pictures because I never actually got to look at it.

Mouth of Truth

 After that we met up with Kari and David and watched them setting up for the gay pride rally at Circus Maximum for a bit, then they went home and we headed over to San Clemente, a church which exemplifies perfectly the layers upon layers of history of Rome. It’s literally a 12^th century church built on top of a 4^th century church built on top of a 1^st century Roman neighborhood. It was really cool to walk through all of it. There was even a water spring inside! After San Clemente we started walking to St Peter’s in Chains to see Michelangelo’s Moses, but we stumbled upon the gay pride parade instead! We got really excited and forgot about going to the church, and watched the parade go by and eventually decided to join. I’ve never done anything that political at home! It was so awesome! Eventually we ran into Brad and Amanda on the side and they joined us. We walked from St Peter’s in Chains all the way down to the Forum, then around the Colosseum, and down to Circus Maximus. We stayed in until the Colosseum when we decided to go home and eat and then come back. It was amazing how well-ordered it was and there was almost no visible police. It was very peaceful and just fun and happy. All the tourists on the side of the road were taking pictures of us, and it felt so awesome to be a part of this once in a life time experience!

Flags in the Gay Pride Parade

After we got home we decided to try the Chinese place by our apartment that we’d been meaning to try, but it was extremely disappointing. Our food took forever and it wasn’t even that good. By the time we were done eating the concert was already over, which was disappointing because we wanted to see Lady Gaga perform, but oh well, we got to be in the parade! We were all really tired and were planning on going to bed, but everyone else was going back out to Scholar’s and convinced us to go. When we got there almost everyone was there, and we just hung out for a bit talking to people. We met some more Italian men, and some Scots, and some Australian girls. The craziest part was that Elli ran into a guy she went to New Zealand with on study abroad two years ago! Elli and Kari left, but I stayed and hung out with Mike, Alex and Brian until it was time to leave. We were lucky enough to encounter the one tram that we saw the entire time. Elli and Kari just so happened to be on the same tram as us because they stopped for fish and chips by the river, but I went over to the guys' room to chill and talk. Finally I decided it was time to go home since I was basically asleep on their couch anyway. Tomorrow is our last day in Rome!

"I would totally pull a Lucretia!"

Day 22: Friday
Last day of class with Tobin Craig! He basically let us talk about whatever we wanted, so we started a discussion on factions, which moved to a discussion on virtue, and then to liberty. My Machiavellian beliefs are shocking for Tobin to hear apparently because every time I said something he told me I was breaking his heart. Maybe I just need to wait until we get to Florence with Petrie and are studying Machiavelli. After class Elli and I went to Campo de’Fiori to buy t-shirts, and the guy selling to us was super nice, and they were only 5euro so I didn’t haggle with him. Then we started walking toward the restaurant we wanted to eat at because Elli remembered it from when she was little when all of the sudden we ran into Petrie. Literally! He was at a payphone and turned around and we recognized him and were shocked. It was lucky too because he was lost and had just arrived, so we showed him the Accent center, and then he came with us out to eat. He had a hard time keeping up with us, not being used to the traffic and amount of walking. We also gave him a crash course in what it’s like to be in Italy, and told him about our adventure from Monday. He paid for our lunch which was very nice, and then we dropped him off at Castel Sant’Angelo hoping he could find his way back because we were headed to the Vatican Museums. There was no line that we could skip with our tickets, and it was all very confusing inside. Finally we found where we were supposed to go and found audioguides, then we began to just wander. We somehow missed most of the first level, but we had really no designs to see anything in the museum specifically except the Sistine Chapel. We did find a bust of Socrates, and we used our audioguides to learn a couple interesting things. We wandered through the Etruscan museum since we know who the Etruscans were through reading Livy. The Hall of Tapestries was interesting because there were these HUGE tapestries on the walls depicting scenes of people killing babies and children! It was absolutely horrific, and we just sort of walked through with our mouths open in a grimace. Next we walked through a room that had giant maps on the wall of all the regions of Italy. The coolest part was the two maps of all of Italy from now and antiquity. Elli and I were able to find cities from Livy like Veii and Tarquinia. We kept wandering and wandering through halls with soooo much art, it was crazy! There was a series of four rooms painted by Raphael which took him eight years, and they were absolutely incredible. Every inch of the room was filled with immense detail. Finally we made it to the Sistine Chapel, which was very disappointing. The best part is the wall depicting Judgment Day, but the ceiling is so far away it’s impossible to admire it properly. And I’m not quite sure why the image of God and Adam’s hands is so famous because it’s only one small and relatively unimpressive part of a much larger fresco with more striking images, in my opinion. It was also annoying because the guards were shouting the entire time for everyone to be silent and to not take pictures, but it’s impossible to get a large crowd like that to be silent, especially when people are giving tours. I would much rather look at a close up picture of the ceiling than stand there breaking my neck trying to see the detail. We left Sistine Chapel, then wandered through a little of the Vatican library, then decided to call it quits after about two to three hours in the museum. We walked back to Argentina, then hopped on the tram home. We had a group dinner planned for 8pm, so we showered and started getting ready, and Elli skyped her family. We made our way over to the restaurant at about 7:30pm and everyone was already there when we got there, except Petrie of course. We had a choice between five dishes, and I chose cabonnera, which was good but I didn’t like the ham in it. We also got Tiramisu and lemon drinks for desert! While we were eating there was a tv playing videos like AFV and it was hilarious. We were laughing so hard from them! After dinner we all walked down to St. Peter’s to take a group picture, which was a clusterfuck but we succeeded! Then we ran home really quickly to change. At 12:30am we were ready to go and made for Scholar’s, a bar that everyone else in our group went to. When we got there a bunch of our group was already there. It was me, Elli, Kari, Mike, David, Brandon, Joe, Dylan, Amanda, Brad, Chris, Don, and Andrew, but the last three left pretty soon after we arrived. We hung around talking to randomly different people, and I met some Minnesotans and they knew where Prior Lake was and one was from Eagan and the other one’s roommate went to my high school. It was so exciting! We also met some Roman guys who couldn't say my name. After a while we decided it was time to go home, and we had to walk all the way home because the tram was no longer running. It was a good night hanging out in Rome and finally meeting some people not from our group.

Group Picture at St. Peter's



The girls ready to go out



KITTIES!

Day 21: Thursday
Class was interesting today because we had a guest speaker who talked about contemporary Italian politics. Crazy stuff! First, their premier owns ALL of the television stations (except one small one) so all of the media bias is what he wants it to be. This makes it difficult for opposition to get the word out about voting or anything like that, and there’s a vote on Sunday. Instead they hold a bunch of big events all around town so they’re very visible, and the media can’t ignore them. As our speaker said, “It’s hard for the media to ignore a bunch of people running nude through the city.” Another interesting thing about Italy is that apparently you have to be convicted of a crime three times before you can actually go to jail (although you can be held during your appeals for up to six years). Our speaker also told us that Italian politics is largely influence by the Catholic and communist background and history of the country, and interesting combination, to say the least. There seems to be a lot of political contradictions in their politics, including a Nazi Maoist party. After class we went home to eat lunch and drop our stuff off, then I headed out for Palatine Hill with Elli, Brandon, Joe, Dylan, and David. We walked to Circus Maximus where they were setting up for the gay pride rally on Saturday. Other than that it was basically just a crater. Next we explored the Palatine Hill, which was cool but at this point I’m not excited by ruins anymore. We slowly made our way into the Forum, where Elli and I took pictures in front of the House of Vestal Virgins with the pond and statues. She also found a giant flower that she took a picture with when she was younger, so she was excited about that, and comparing the pictures is pretty awesome. Then we walked in the direction of the Colosseum to take pictures outside, but we didn’t go in even though we paid for the tickets to do so. We also saw Trajan’s Market and Column.

Palatine Hill

House of Vestal Virgins

Colosseum

Then we split up because David hadn’t been to Trevi fountain yet, and Elli, Brandon, Dylan and I wanted to go to the Argentina cat sanctuary (well Elli didn't want to, but she came to take pictures). It was so awesome! SO MANY KITTIES! Elli took pictures of us playing with them even though she’s deathly allergic. There was one kitty that was black and white, and its feet were all white except one black toe, and another tall gangly one that liked playing with my necklace. There were literally cats in every direction no matter which way you looked. Apparently they have 250! Then they were closing so we had to leave, but I am satisfied with the fact that I got to play with the kitties who live where Caesar was assassinated. After that Elli and I went souvenir shopping, and I bought some stuff for myself and other people. We made our way home to make dinner, then hung around not worrying about class since there’s only one left and there’s no way we’ll get to talking about the reading. I also finally got to skype Jordan again! Elli and I were exhausted and planned on going to bed early, but we went to get gelato one last time at our favorite gelateria/bar at like 10:30pm. I got mango, which was good, and biscotta, which was good too, but not together. Looking forward to finishing up class tomorrow! (Sorry about my posts being delayed, I've been busy in Rome.)

Petting a kitty!

Kittttttttty :)

Warm, wet, and wild...must be something in the water

Day 20: Wednesday
What a perfect day. We made it to our meeting place just fine, then proceeded to the train for Ostia Antica. Despite a slight delay, we made it! It was much like Pompeii but smaller and with less people, and we walked around on our tour from Dr. Westal for a couple hours, learning about the baths and the bakery of the city, as well as seeing beautiful mosaics. I did not enjoy his presentation in class on Monday, but today was much better, and he was by far the best tour guide we’ve had. The best part of the trip was that Tobin’s family came, and he has three small ADORABLE children aged four, two and a half, and nine months. I even got to have a nice chat with his wife on the train to Ostia. They are such an adorable family!

Theater of Ostia Antica

After the tour, it was about 12:30pm, and we were ready to beach it up, so a group of me, Elli, Kari, Breanne, Sarah, Mike, Alex, Chris, Brian, Andrew, Brad, and Amanda went back to the train to head toward the beach, then hopped on a bus…well all of us but Chris, who got left behind. He found us though! Then some people went to McDonald’s while the rest of us chose the pizzeria next door. Kari and I decided to share the pizza with the fries on it, and it was delicious. The pizzas took FOREVER though. After we ate lunch, we went into the first private beach we found, for six euro. It was fantastic! There was almost no one else there, and we got chairs. We found the rest of our group, changed into our swimsuits, put on more sunscreen, and ran into the water. It felt so good! It was hot and sunny, even though the weather said it was supposed to thunderstorm. It was perfect weather! I tried to read some Livy, but I just wasn’t having it, so I sat around enjoying the beachness: went swimming a couple more times, buried Brian in the sand, got thrown into the water by Mike and Andrew, thought I stepped on a fish and made Elli carry me, and bonded with everyone. It was the perfect day just chilling around on a beautiful beach and forgetting for a while that I was still in Italy. Finally the beach was closing, so we sadly had to leave, but we went to McDonald’s for fries and mcflurries. Then we rode back home on one of the most hilarious train rides I’ve ever been on. On the train Mike was so tired he was leaning all over the place. He started to fall asleep on Brad next to him, and Brad’s face was priceless. The best part is that Mike fell asleep with a cigarette still hanging in his mouth. Then Brian started sticking them in his nose and ears, all the while Mike was rocking around completely asleep and completely unaware. We were all crying and taking pictures, and even the old Italian couple sitting next to us got a kick out it. They were pointing and laughing! Finally our stop arrived and we had to wake Mike up, and he was so confused and didn’t know what happened at all. It's impossible to describe how hilarious this was for all of us. We got on the 3 bus home, and I was exhausted when we finally made it back. Being at the beach just drains you like that. We showered, had dinner, uploaded pictures, and I finally started my paper. I’m halfway done with it, and I’m just going to finish the rest in class tomorrow. We have a guest speaker, so I don’t expect to get to a lot of Livy, and I finished Book VII except the last ten pages, so I’m not too worried. I wanted to be asleep like an hour and a half ago, so it’s time for bed. Tomorrow we have plans for more old stuff, going back to the Forum and seeing the Palatine! Still trying to catch up on pictures....

Burying Brian in the sand

The Sea!